220 Royal Society. 



March 21. — The following letter from Mr. Addington to the Se- 

 cretary was read. 



Foreign Office, March 20th, 1850. 



Sir, — I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to send to you, for 

 the information of the President and Council of the Royal Society, 

 an extract of a letter which his Lordship has received from Mr. James 

 Richardson, stating that in the month of November last, a fall of 

 aerolites had taken place on the coast of Barbary attended with a 

 brilliant stream of light, which extended from Tunis to Tripoli, some 

 of the stones falling in the latter city. 

 I am, Sir, 



Your most obedient, humble Servant, 



H. W. Addington. 

 The Secretary to the Royal Society, 



"Extract of a letter from Mr. Richardson, dated off Jerbah, 

 25th January 1850. 



"I will trouble your Lordship by the mention of the astronomic 

 phenomenon which terrified or arrested the attention of the inhabit- 

 ants of the whole of this coast some two months ago. This was 

 the fall of a shower of aerolites, with a brilliant stream of light 

 accompanying them, and which extended from Tunis to Tripoli, 

 some of the stones falling in the latter city. 



"The alarm was very great in Tunis, and several Jews and Moors 

 instinctively fled to the British Consulate, as the common refuge 

 from every kind of evil and danger. 



" The fall of these aerolites was followed by the severest or coldest 

 winter which the inhabitants of Tunis and Tripoli have experienced 

 for many years." 



The reading of a paper, entitled " Discussion of Meteorological 

 Observations taken in India at various heights." By Lieut.-Colonel 

 Sykes, F.R.S. &c, was commenced, but was not concluded. 



April 11. — Lieut.-Colonel Sykes's paper, entitled "Discussion of 

 Meteorological Observations in India," was resumed and concluded. 



The author adverts to a former paper " On the Meteorology of 

 theDeccan," published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1835, 

 and after referring to the conclusions at which he arrived in that 

 communication, states that, in the discussion of the meteorological 

 observations which form the subject of the present paper, and which 

 were made over a very extended area, at different heights, some 

 being hourly and running through several years at the same station, 

 it is very satisfactory to find that they fully establish the accuracy 

 of the former deductions. He remarks that, as some of the obser- 

 vations now discussed were hourly records continued through con- 

 siderable periods of time., an opportunity has been afforded of in- 

 vestigating abnormal conditions, which the former limited number 

 of diurnal observations did not permit; and gives the following 

 review of what appears to be normal and abnormal conditions. 



The annual and daily range of the barometer diminishes from the 

 sea-level up to the greatest height observed, 8640 feet at Dodabetta, 



